Good morning, church.
It's good to see you this morning.
Would you turn with me to Isaiah chapter 11?
That's page 575 in the Pew Bible, if you'd like to follow along there.
We're looking this morning at Isaiah 11, verses 1 through 9.
Let me read Isaiah 11, 1 through 9 for us.
Isaiah writes this,
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
So how does the story end?
Here we are just a few days away from Christmas, and for the past three weeks we've been looking at key Old Testament texts that light up that event for us.
We've seen that Jesus is the new king who establishes the new covenant and who grants us new hearts.
But Christmas, you see, is actually really the middle of a much larger, great, and wonderful story that God is telling.
And where exactly is it all going?
How does it all end?
I had a friend in high school who in English class would always jump to the end of whatever book we had been assigned,
and she would always read the last chapter before we actually finished the book.
I know I always felt that that was sort of cheating, being sort of a natural people pleaser and rule follower.
I thought that, hey, you shouldn't do that.
After all, you should have to do the hard work of reading all 300 plus pages of Pride and Prejudice over whatever it is,
before you actually find out whether Elizabeth gets with Darcy and her 10,000 pounds a year.
You can't just skip to the end.
That doesn't seem right.
But, you know, the funny thing about the Bible is that God is always telling us how the story ends.
Again and again and again, he's always breaking into the present with a glimpse of his future.
It would seem that God really wants his people to know where it's all going.
And no matter what happens, to not forget.
And the passage that we just read is just one of those places where God wants us to hear loud and clear,
here's how the story ends.
And what do we see?
What do we see just looking at this passage from Isaiah 11, 1 through 9?
Isaiah's telling the people of his day that a king will come.
And that he will judge.
And that all creation will be healed.
And, you know, you see that threefold movement.
Again and again in Isaiah.
And even across the Old Testament.
Listen to Psalm 96, 11 through 13.
And here it is again.
Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice.
Let the sea roar and all that fills it.
Let the field exult and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord.
For he comes.
For he comes to judge the earth.
There it is.
The Lord will come.
He will judge with perfect justice.
And all creation will erupt in joy.
Of course, we don't always connect judgment and the joy of creation in our minds.
That connection seems kind of odd to us.
But you see, the coming justice of God, friends.
That Isaiah connects with this coming king.
And who we know from the perspective of the New Testament is Jesus himself.
The justice that he will bring one day.
Is the justice that will finally remove evil and wrong.
And put the world right again.
God isn't going to scrap creation and start over.
No, he's going to make it right.
And he's going to make it new once more.
So do you see the utter brilliance and beauty of this true story that God's bringing to pass?
That according to the Bible, what God began in creation, he's going to bring to its fulfillment in the new creation.
That God is taking this story to a new heavens and a new earth where everything that the fall has stolen and broken is restored and healed.
And if we can catch a glimpse of that, if we can really listen to what God is telling us about how this story, about how our story ends.
It will do at least two things.
It will give fresh shape to our living for Christ.
And it will give depth to our love for Christ.
It will give fresh shape to our living for Christ.
Because if you know how the story is going to end, then it's going to shine a whole lot of light on how we ought to be living now.
And you know that sort of intuitively, don't you?
Because your car ride to vacation has a totally different tenor and quality than your car ride home from vacation.
Right?
You know how that story is going to end.
There's cupcakes and cookies and presents in grandma's house over the river and through the woods.
Here we come.
This journey ends in about 10,000 emails piled up in your inbox.
And a lot of paperwork you have to do.
Problems and fires you have to put out.
So it gives a whole fresh shape to our living for Christ.
But you know, it also gives depth to our love for Christ.
And particularly for us in this season of the year, it will make the event of Christmas all the more wonderful for us.
It will make us see all the more how worthy he is of our trust and our affection.
Because if we really want to appreciate Jesus' incarnation in all its fullness, then we have to see what his incarnation actually achieves in all its fullness.
And when you can see it from the perspective of the end, oh friends, it becomes a deep and wondrous mystery.
So let's spend some time this morning looking at the picture of the new creation that Isaiah gives us here in chapter 11, especially verses 6 through 9.
The king, Isaiah says, will bring the new creation.
So what's it like?
And I think we see at least four things here.
And the first thing we see is this.
The new creation that Jesus brings is a physical, material, bodily future.
Look again at the imagery of verses 6 through 9.
Wolves and lambs, leopards and goats, cows grazing, lions eating, children playing.
Now, of course, there's a figurative element to what Isaiah is saying here.
And we'll get to that.
But don't miss the obvious point that's right there before our eyes.
God's future will be a physical, experiential reality.
Why on earth use such earthy images unless to say that it is this earth that will be swept up and made beautiful in the most unimaginable ways?
And of course, the new heavens and new earth will be hard to imagine, right?
Probably about as hard to imagine as a wolf dwelling with a lamb or a lion eating straw like an ox.
There will be changes that we can't now wrap our minds around.
But don't think that the future God has in store for his people and for his world is some merely spiritual thing.
As if we'll all be bodiless spirits floating on ethereal clouds.
Oh, no, friends.
Listen to how Isaiah describes it a little later in chapter 25 of his book.
There he comes back to this new creation theme and writes,
The Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food.
A feast of well-aged wine.
Of rich food full of marrow of aged wine well refined.
If Isaiah 11 has us leading and playing in verses 6 and 8, Isaiah 25 has us feasting and drinking.
In the new heavens and the new earth.
The future that God has in store.
His new creation.
Will not disappoint.
Don't we often fall captive to the thinking that our best life is now.
Or at least ought to be now.
That we need to make the most of it before we pass our prime.
I'm reading all these sort of depressing articles every now and then.
That sort of in your early 30s, you're hitting your prime.
I read those and I think it's just like downhill from here.
Here I go.
Here I come.
Happy days are gone.
Don't we think that we need to experience everything we possibly can before it's too late?
And doesn't that produce so much anxiety?
And on top of that anxiety, so much regret.
Beth and I this past May celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary.
And I was so anxious to get the details of our sort of time together just right.
Because you only get one 10-year anniversary, right?
But friends, what if the end of the story for those in Christ isn't what we commonly think of as heaven?
That is a sort of bodiless existence about as thrilling as a high school organ recital?
What if what he had in store was a new heavens and a new earth?
Where there will be leading and playing.
Tasks to explore.
Joys to be won.
Feasting and drinking.
Wouldn't that be a liberating thing for you now?
That even if you didn't get into the school of your dreams.
That even if you didn't land the job of your dreams.
That there's still a future in store for you.
That will thrill you to your bones.
And then open a horizon with even greater thrills to come.
Something that would outstrip even your most audacious dreams that you dare to dream for yourself.
Wouldn't that release you from the deadly anxiety that you feel?
And actually free you to live with joy right now.
You know, it may seem a bit paradoxical, but I think it's true.
That only if there's a greater joy to come can you ever really know joy in the present.
Because if you know that the future that's held out for you is not one of joy,
how can it not just color your present with a cloud of anxiety and despair?
You see friends, the sea route of joy isn't living like you're dying or dancing till the world ends,
but realizing that the king is bringing the new creation.
A new creation that is bodily, physical, experiential in a degree that we can only now begin to fathom.
So that's the first thing Isaiah wants us to see, that this new creation is a physical future.
But second, he wants us to see that this new creation is a future without enmity and without strife.
The animals in verses 6 and 7 are all natural enemies, aren't they?
Predators and prey, hunter and hunted, strong and weak.
And of course Isaiah is using these images to point to an even bigger reality.
That in the new creation, all the enmities that rip our world apart,
all the strife that causes creation to groan will be healed.
Hostility will be replaced with hospitality.
That's what the word dwell in verse 6 really means.
To welcome a sojourner.
To bring them in.
And the images of eating together in verse 7, don't they pretty much express the same thing?
There they are, enemies now sitting at table, eating together in peace.
In Revelation 22 that Elizabeth read for us earlier, John writes of the healing of the nations.
And the new heavens and the new earth.
Now that is where God is taking creation.
A future free of enmity and strife.
A future full of reconciliation, a peace where hostility is being replaced and has been replaced by hospitality.
Doesn't it make sense that the church should be living in advance of that great day?
Ought we not to be a people who are deeply concerned about reconciliation now?
If that's indeed the grain of the universe, friends.
That is where God is taking us.
Why not live that way now?
In advance of that great day?
Ought not the church be the place where hospitality is extended to one another?
Even if we have very little in common.
Even if before coming to know Christ, we may have been natural enemies.
Yankees and Red Sox fans, here they are.
Gathering around table.
But it gets more serious than that, doesn't it?
In light of a passage like this, it's hard not to think about the racial tensions that have gripped our country.
Not just in the past months, but over our entire history, it seems.
And Isaiah is telling us that God's future is one where such divisions will be healed.
Not by looking the other way, but will be healed with perfect justice.
And that gives us much hope in the midst of these trying times.
But it also means that the church, here and now, as a people living in light of the new creation in Christ,
should be a place where the world can get a glimpse, even if an imperfect one, of that coming day.
In Ephesians 2, Paul says,
We've been reconciled to God through the cross, and therefore reconciled to one another through the cross.
And as we practice that cross-shaped life together, extending hospitality, where there was once hostility,
we become a glimpse of God's new creation to come.
That the world will start to see in us where God's plan is headed.
And they'll be shown that there's a whole new way to be human.
There's a whole new way to be alive.
Right here, in the church of Jesus Christ.
Of course, reconciliation is hard work.
Loving each other, especially when we're different from one another, is hard work.
God's vision for the church to be a people who know unity in and through diversity is not easy,
given our natural selfishness.
But friends, doesn't it thrill you to think that by God's spirit at work in us,
when we do this work,
it's a signpost of what's to come.
It's a demonstration of God's new creation in the midst of the old.
And in many ways, that sort of thinking should begin to color more and more everything we do.
If in Christ we are a new creation, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5,
then we should be asking how every aspect of our lives can be signs and emblems of that great fact.
How can everything we do be a foretaste of what God has in store?
Our life together as a church will be part of that.
So will our lives at work.
As we seek to love our neighbors and do things that are full of beauty and justice and love and truth.
Our lives at home will be rich with that reality of wanting to be a beacon of creation healed.
Friends, the King is bringing the new creation, a future without enmity and without strife.
A future where there will be lasting peace and order.
And insofar as our lives embody these things in response to God's grace,
we're a sign of it in the present for the world to see.
But Isaiah has even more to tell us about what's in store.
It's not only a future without enmity, but third, it's a future even without death.
In verse 8, Isaiah gives us the image of an infant playing over the hole of a cobra,
of a toddler sticking his hand in an adder's den.
Now, I don't know about you, but that seems like a very strange image.
John Oswalt in his commentary on Isaiah, which is quite excellent, explains it this way.
He says,
The contradiction of a child playing about the den of poisonous snakes can almost be felt physically.
One wants to snatch the child away from the presence of such sudden arbitrary death.
And then he goes on and says,
In what more effective way could a writer communicate his conviction that in the Messiah's day,
death itself will be conquered?
One thinks of the New Testament's appropriation of Hosea 13 in 1 Corinthians,
O death, where is thy sting?
What's Isaiah getting at with this picture in verse 8?
That in the new creation that Jesus brings,
death itself is defanged.
That there will be no more fear of death, for death will be defeated once for all.
In Revelation 21, we read,
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.
For the former things have passed away,
And he who was seated on the throne said,
Behold, I am making all things new.
Reflecting on these truths,
the early 17th century pastor and poet John Donne wrote,
Death, be not proud,
though some have called thee mighty and dreadful,
for thou art not so.
For those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow,
die not, poor death,
nor yet canest thou kill me.
One short sleep past,
we wake eternally,
and death shall be no more.
Death, thou shalt die.
Friends, the Christian hope is just that.
That death itself lives on borrowed time,
and is headed for the grave.
The one great reality that we think none of us will shake or escape,
is itself not the last word.
That the power and mercy and grace of God
has and will overcome
the last enemy, Paul says,
death itself.
When the king returns,
our bodies will be raised,
and death will be no more.
And if that's where the story's headed,
it too shapes how we live in the present.
Does it not?
The Apostle Paul wrote to the young church in Thessalonica
when some of their members had died,
we don't grieve as others do,
who have no hope.
Acknowledging there, of course,
that we should grieve,
and we do grieve,
but not as those
who have no hope.
Our grief is surrounded
in a deeper reality
that death is not the last word,
that Christ has conquered sin and death,
and in new creation we shall rise
never to die again,
never to be separated again,
never to know loss or sorrow again.
One short sleep past,
we wake eternally,
and death shall be no more.
Death,
thou shalt die.
The new creation will be a future
without strife
and without death.
But fourth,
the new creation will be a future
without ignorance.
Look again at verse 9.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full
of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
What is our greatest problem
that God's redemptive history
is going to solve?
What's the deepest ravage of sin
that God's story
will restore in the end?
You see, the greatest problem
and the deepest loss
is that we no longer
know the Lord.
We no longer know the Lord
in the experiential,
personal way
for which He created us.
It is this deathly ignorance
that is our greatest loss.
To be without God
in the world,
to know Him,
it seems not at all.
Think of how lovers
often talk
when they lose
their beloved.
Nothing tastes anymore.
Music is dull.
Laughter is hollow.
Life seems thin.
Don't you see, friends,
this is the condition
of humanity
separated from God.
We were meant
to know Him
and to commune with Him
and in communion with Him
to experience delight
in all His gifts
that He's given us
in the created order.
But the double tragedy
of sin
is that we're not only
cut off from knowing God,
but we don't even realize
what we've lost.
It's a double ignorance.
And yet there's coming a day
when the earth will be full
of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
That our ignorance
will be washed away
and not a single inch
of creation
will be without
the intimate
and awe-filled
knowledge of God
for which we were made.
The earth
will be full.
And friends,
that knowledge
will never grow old.
Further up
and further in
we will go
into the infinite depths
of who God is.
Isn't it so stunning
in Revelation 22
when John reaches
the climax
of his whole exposition,
of his whole book,
when he reaches
the climax
of the whole Bible,
in such a short phrase
he just says,
they will see His face.
Friends,
there it is.
And in that moment
we'll find that
all our life
in this world
and all our adventures
had only been the cover
and the title page.
As Lewis writes
in The Last Battle,
now at last
they were beginning
chapter one
of the great story
which no one on earth
has read,
which goes on forever,
in which every chapter
is better than the one before.
Or as Revelation 22
5 puts it,
and they will reign
forever and ever.
Friends,
don't you see,
if life in the new heaven
and the new earth
will be full
of the knowledge
of the Lord
as the waters
cover the sea,
if the knowledge
of God
will be the crowning feature
and the infinite delight
of God's perfectly
restored world,
then any act
of growing
in our knowledge
of the Lord
now
is a step
into the delight
of the world
to come.
So how can you
best prepare
for your future?
Grow in your knowledge
of the Lord.
How can you and I
best live
in light
of the new creation?
Grow in your knowledge
of the Lord.
Not just in the facts
that you may know
about God,
but in your personal
acquaintance with Him.
what will you do
in the coming year
to prepare
for eternity?
What good plans
will you make
to know God
better
this coming year
than you've known Him
the year before?
Will it be a resolve
to read Scripture
more regularly,
more reflectively,
more consistently?
Will it be a commitment
to join a small group
where you can
seek the Lord's face
together?
Will it be a decision
to pray more earnestly
for your neighbors
and friends
and to pray more earnestly
that Christ would be
your treasure?
Will it be a determination
to study in depth
some attribute of God
or some aspect
of Christ's person
or work
through reading
good Christian books
from the ages?
Friends,
whatever it is,
do it with confidence
that knowing God
is what your future
holds in Christ
so that any genuine
attempt to know Him
better now
is sure to succeed.
That's where He's
taking you
and any step
you take now
is simply putting
yourself in line
with the very direction
of His redemptive
history itself
and He will not
disappoint you.
The King is bringing
His new creation
that will be a future
without enmity,
without death,
and without ignorance.
A healed world
full of peace
and life
and the knowledge
of God.
friends,
I wonder
as we've taken
stock of Isaiah's
picture here
of the new creation
how it all sounds
to you.
Especially if you're here
and you're not a Christian,
maybe the prospect
of God's future
sounds a lot like
wishful thinking.
Like a dream
that won't ever
come true.
Could God
really make
all things new?
Of course,
that's a really
good question.
And you know,
the best answer
is that God
has already
shown us
that He can
and will do it.
In fact,
in a sense,
God has already
done it.
In space,
in time,
in history.
Because what God
promises to do
for the whole earth
is already done
in Jesus Christ.
look again
at verse 1
of our text.
There shall come
forth a shoot
from the stump
of Jesse,
and a branch
from his roots
shall bear fruit.
Isaiah is here
describing the coming
of the king.
That out of the stump
of the house
of Jesse,
that is,
the royal house
of David,
a shoot
comes forth.
of course,
a stump
isn't a very
flattering image,
is it?
It's cut down,
right?
A stump
is lifeless.
But Isaiah
says that new
life will come
from that seemingly
lifeless place.
Out of the stump,
a shoot.
Out of the roots,
a new branch.
Out of the old,
something new.
Out of death,
life.
And notice,
it's not replacing
the stump
with something else.
God isn't throwing
it out and starting
over.
No,
from the midst
of that old,
fallen down,
lifeless Davidic line,
new life
and new hope
comes.
Like a shoot
springing out
of a stump.
And friends,
doesn't it become
clear
that the incarnation
then,
which fulfilled
this verse
in ways I'm sure
Isaiah barely
could imagine,
that the incarnation
is God
beginning
his new creation
project.
That in sending
his son
to take on
flesh,
he was inaugurating
the renewal
of creation
in and through
him.
You see,
when he was born,
Christ entered
the fallen down,
lifeless line
of David,
the stump of Jesse,
and he fulfilled
all of God's
promises.
Jesus restored
David's throne
in an unexpected
and glorious way
through his death
and resurrection.
But you see,
by entering
David's line,
Christ was also
entering
our fallen down
and lifeless
humanity.
He didn't just
become the true
David,
but he became
the new Adam.
And that means
that by taking
on our humanity,
Christ was taking
into himself
the very groaning
of creation itself.
That just as Adam
had led creation
into ruin,
that Christ,
the new Adam,
would lead creation
into glory.
In other words,
the green shoot
that came forth
from the stump
of Jesse
had roots
that went down
into God's
cosmic order itself
so that what God
did for his son,
especially in the
resurrection,
was a promise
and demonstration
of what he would
do for all
who trust in him
and for even
the created world
itself.
This king
born on
Christmas day
is the one
who brings
the new creation.
In his first
coming,
he was a shoot
springing forth
from the stump
of our fallen
humanity
with a promise
of new creation
for all who believe
and in his second
coming,
he will consummate
that new creation
work and make
all things new.
Do you see
the magnitude
now of what
Christmas means
in this son
who was born?
There it is,
the very healing
of creation,
the end
of our enmity,
of our death,
of our ignorance,
and the beginning
of the world
to come.
Let's pray,
friends.
Lord Jesus,
we pray
that you would
stamp eternity
onto our eyes
and you would
stamp it
onto our hearts.
God,
thank you
in your grace
and your mercy
and in your wisdom
you tell us
again and again
and again
where you are
taking us
through your son
and by your spirit.
God,
help us to live
in light
of that great day.
Help us to love
and to rejoice
and Lord,
even to grow
in our knowledge
of you
for that is where
Christ,
you are taking us.
Lord,
we ask all this
in Christ's name.
Amen.